Awakening
by Joanna L'Aurel
Summary: "Time to fight," I whisper, only to myself, touching my reflection. I promise that I will do it. I will try very, very hard. If not for me, then for Prim. For My Mother. For Gale. For Peeta. A glorious morning can only follow an endless night.  4th book
1. one

**1.**

In my mind, I'm flying.

I can imagine the clouds, all around me- sometimes clear, wisps of nothing that linger on my wings and barely blind my view. Small, whisper thin clouds.

Other times, they hang black in the sky, accompanied by flashes of lightning and claps of roaring thunder that render me defenseless.

This is when the nightmares come. But I dont wake up. I refuse.

I refuse because the reality is still worse. Tied in a place where I know nothing, nobody, nothing of truth- the idea of flying is a close comfort. I feel like I can almost erase the past- I can't, of course, but for a small moment, a milisecond in time, I can feel hope again. Breathe again.

I am the mocking jay.

Tonight, a whirlwind of colors surround me as I cruise high above the trees- I'm not sure where I'm headed. The Ruins of District 12 appear below me, still smoking; somewhere in the distance, a tall smoke stack emits purple clouds of smog. Then the colors change again- they seem to bleed together, forming a sort of fatal collage.

_Faces. So many faces._

I see them, coming into focus for a brief series of seconds before decimating into oblivion.

I see Rue first- looking at me behind those dark eyes. Her expression is what I fear- not joy, not sorrow, but something in between. She closes her eyes and I reach for her, secretly begging.

_Please_, I think to myself. _Say something. Help me. Help me understand._

She's wrapped in flowers now, laying down, just as I left her, helpless, alone. Then the scene changes again. This time, the mutts are chasing me, followed by Caro and Gale. _Gale?_ I don't have time to look back before the colors fade again and bring me back to a dark room and I'm forced to look at President Snow, although he's long dead.

His snakelike eyes narrow at me. I take a step back, but find I"m pressed against glass- a sort of tube like encasement. Again, it changes, shifting colors until I can barely see.

Even in my dreams, I'm dizzy.

Now I'm being pressed up, onto a flat field. I can recognize it only as the arena from the first round of the Hunger Games. The first time this all began. Prim appears in front of me, now, with an apron on and her flaxen colored hair runing down adjacent braids. She is walking towards me and my heart leaps with a joy I have declined for so long.

My sister.

I can feel a smile spreading across my face as I take a step towards her. Finally. No we can talk. Now we can sort all of these things out. What is real, what isn't.

_What isn't._

Only an instant passes. Then, I can see it, casting a shadow over both of us. Falling quietly as a feather, silvery and omnicent.

Prim catches my gaze and looks up too- catching the small thing in her hand, hodling it tight against her chest, pressing it to her heart.

The parachute.

A flash of light makes me relive her death. Then, again. Then, again. I break from the grief. All the scars break open, torn again, a hundred fold. A thousand fold. And I am screaming. But I hear merely silence. The terror encases me in its grip. An Avox.

Now I am an Avox. Not just that- something much worse, something much more dreadful.

I don't give up the attempt to scream until I finally hear my own voice again. I shouldn't call it my own voice- it sounds more like that of a lunatic now. I'm wet with sweat in the darkness- it cakes my hair over my face and shields my eyes. Then, someone is holding me, holding me very close and rocking me back and forth. After a few moments of this, I'm able to calm down enough to open my eyes. I strain to look up in the moonlight to see Peeta. He is holding me with somewhat of a death grip, as if no one, nothing can ever reach me again. His usually bright blue eyes look troubled and faded, and I soften my grip on the sheets, seeing blood on my hands.

"Nightmare." I seem to stumble out.

Peeta nods."We've got to figure something out. This isn't helping you."A few minutes pass and I shiver. How did it get so cold? Peeta senses my cold and, very carefully, crosses over to my dresser and retrieves a thick blanket. He wraps it around me gingerly and takes something out of his pocket.

"Here," he says. It's a small vile of sleeping syrup. I refuse, once, twice, before he talks me into a small dose."Please, it'll help."

I snatch it from his fingers in a last-ditch effort to avoid the stuff. I shouldn't be angry, but the last thing I want right now is more pressure to return to the hell that occupies my dreams.

Peeta brushes a dark lock out of my eyes, seeming to read my mind. Then, impulsively, he takes my face in his hands and kisses me- scared, as if I -or he, for that matter, could slip at any moment.

By the time we finally break, tears glisten up my eyes and threaten to spill over. I know how hard he's fighting- for the memories, for what was true. Not some fabrication the Capitol presented to him.

"We're at home now, safe- real or not real?" He says quickly for support.

I squeeze his hand shakily. "Real." He's still lost too- drifting somewhere between lies and reality, trying to understand, trying to remember, despite the pain. Pain is commonplace now. it is comfort, hope that is the real rarity. Which is maybe why I'm scared to open up those feelings again- to revisit the past, our past- and take it apart. It's what strikes fear in me once he rises, plants a kiss on my forehead and dissapears behind the door of my room.

As I down the sweet syrup, I let myself think only of Peeta Mellark as I softly sing myself to sleep.

I wake, two days later, starving but pleased that the medicine kicked in so potently. Greasy Sae's downstairs, cooking something, I'm not sure what. I creep down the stairs in just a white bathrobe and steal a look at her and Peeta, who sit opposite the breakfast table, talking in hushed tones. Behind Sae, something sizzles in a pan and I see cheese buns rising in the oven.

"This is all a mistake." Greasy Sae picks up. "it's too early for you to be trying to change everything, not now."What is she talking about? I lean dangerously close to the wall, within earshot, while holding onto the stairwell.

"I don't feel I have a choice." Peeta offers, looking at his hands. "There's too many bad memories here."

Greasy Sae stares him down. "You shouldn't even trust yourself." She offers coldly.

_I've been through everything with him,_ I think to myself. _And I trust him. So why don't you? _I do trust him, don't I?

"I'm fine." Peeta retaliates, although we know he's not. They sit in silence for a few minutes before Sae's realized she's scorched whatever's in teh pan. I realize I'm not going to get any more from the conversation, so I return upstairs despite my hunger.

I run a hot bath and dip my feet in. Inside, steam is accumulating fast on the window panes. I am immersed, just wanting to float away.

What was she talking about, with Peeta changing everything? I try to jog my memory back, to anything he might have said, but he's kept somewhat of a low profile since my return- bringing me bread, closing the windows at night- sometimes exchanging a brief conversation over breakfast.

"What's the news?" I would ask, a little too brightly to edge him along.

He would just smile. "Later, Katniss." He squeezed my hand on the way out. I know he's trying to protect me. But from what? I dip my head under water, then return again to the surface. And then it hits me.

_He's protecting me from himself._


	2. two

**2.**

I want to push away my thoughts, but my years in the games have taught me otherwise. Accept the worst.

_Accept what will keep you alive._

I think back to only a few weeks ago, when Peeta had lunged at me in District 13 after the rescue mission. My hands fly, suddenly- to my throat where a trace scar still remains.

I think of the dozens of times after that, when he would peek into my room after I had supposedly knocked myself out from the painkillers. He would cross to my bed carefully and watch me as I pretended to sleep. His hands would find that crook in my neck where he had tried to overtake me- and he would shut his eyes, trying to erase all the persistent lies fed to him by Snow and the Capitol.

Then he would kiss it, as if it could magically change things- make me forgive him. Change the scar. Renew flesh. It meant something to him, and so it worked. At least in my regard, it worked.

There was no use being angry at him anymore.

It was best to keep things behind us, as if that wasn't already impossible enough.

Once I finish bathing, I put on a pair of simple brown pants and a green button up shirt. I attempt to braid my choppy hair until I realize it's still too short and uneven. I sigh. Someday.

I decide on a low ponytail that looks more like a stump gathered at my neck. It'll suffice. Days of sleep has done wonders on my skin, but it fails to hide the shadows under my eyes or the hollowness in my cheeks. I try to forget it. "Time to look forward", I whisper, touching my reflection. I, Katniss Everdeen- the optimist. It's scary. I promise myself that I will do it. If not for me, then for Prim. for my mother. For Gale.

_For Peeta_. I will try very, very hard.

I make my way down to the kitchen for the second time this morning. This time, only Greasy Sae greets me. Something is still smoking in the sink.

"Hope you like cheese buns." She says flatly. I force a smile, hoping she'll leave me alone. She does. I take a plateful and begin to work at it.

Buttercup strolls in, pressing his smuged face into my hand before leaping off the table again. He's Primrose's stray cat- that much has never changed. He seems in better spirits from our last encounter. Either that or he's caught a street mouse again.

The day wanes on. I realize I haven't much improved my supposed 'talent' from the Victory Tour. What was I supposed to be good at? Oh yes. Dancing.

I stare at my mangled, scarred feet.

"Good luck with that." I say aloud.

* * *

><p>I wait for Greasy Say to prepare dinner. I peek out the windows. I watch from the library. I try to pass the time by tying, then untying, various knots.<p>

I want to see Peeta. I'm unsure of what he's up to, but his house is dark anyway and I'm not allowed to venture outside. yet. Our televisions have been programmed to stay off in my house, and news is never delivered to me. The merest query is turned down. Greasy Sae shakes her head when I ask for news of outside.

"What's going on, what is it?" I ask. "What have they dcided?"

Greasy Sae shakes her head so much I fear it will fall off.

"Later." She always answers, cryptically so. "Later."

Now I sit in the foyer of the house, head pressed up to the glass as I doze off. It's midnight before Sae surfaces again, claiming she had forgotten and had gone to bed with nightmares about me.

"At least yours are useful." I say glumly.

She pours some sort of broth in my bowl. "Eat up. You'll need your strength."

I sink lower in my chair. "Inactivity doesn't demand much fuel."

"I'm not talking about that. Your mother's coming."

She sets a spoon in my hand and walks away without another word.

* * *

><p>My mother. <em>My mother.<em>

Worst case scenario: she's gone mad with grief, like me. They've decided she's too unstable at the Capitol. Might pull another Katniss Everdeen, assasinating the wrong president. A wave of guilt rushes over me: they're sending her back because of me. She's under such scrutiny after what happened. No one will talk to her. She can't take it anymore.

My mind flashes to her before the Reaping. Days upon days of crying, tears staining her pillowcases, weeks spent in bed. Words meaningless. Is this what I have to face when she returns?

Part of me doesn't want to see her at all.

_Just let her be_, I think to myself. _Let her remake herself. Like a phoenix out of the ashes_. She could do it. She's still young. Many of the doctors, single men or widowers from District 13 had looked upon her with admiration. Some even longing. It was possible. But she would never allow it. No, not my mother, with such loyalty to my father. There was no reoom for that. She's as good as gone.

Peeta slips into my room as I'm changing for the day. The sight of me half-naked dowan't disturb him. Only the scars. And even then, it's not pity so much as it is an empathy.

_He feels them himself._

"I'm sorry," He offers, blushing, and turns to the balcony, sitting apart from me. He remembers my famous prudishness. I let a smile out and return to where he's sitting.

He's looking out my windows, eyes fixated on the woods outside the gate. I take his face in my hand and draw it back to me. I'm not sure why.

"What are you thinking about?" I ask.

"You." He says simply.

A moment of silence passes.

"My mother's coming." I say. I lose his glance again, and he's taking my hands in his, rubbing down my palms, intertwining his fingers in mine.

"I know."

My eyes search his frantically. What else does he know? Surely he knows why!

"Peeta." I say slowly and something stirs. I think of all the people who have used that name- some, in admiration upon our victory at the Hunger Games- others, in hatred and anger as he was tortured- and a few, in love. A very small percentage, but an amount nonetheless.

I regain my thoughtrs. "Peeta, you know why she's coming. They haven't kept anything from you." I know this as fact- the new Capitol had sent him updates practically eveyrday. They had answered his questions and alloted him money to rebuild the bakery. Not like he really needed it, anyway. They were just trying to soften the blow of what happens when your family is gone.

I suppose the new regime had decided hew asin a stable peice of mind, although there are still brief flickering seconds when his eyes go wild. Someday, if I ever regain normalacy, maybe I can erase it all with my kisses..

"Peeta, please tell me why they're sending her." Tell me what's happened. I can handle it."

Peeta's drawing tiny circles on my forearm with his finger. When he finally looks up, he is silent, but he knows.

"They won't tell me anything." I explain.

He nods. "You did kill Coin. I don't entirely blame them." Now a boyish smile crosses his face. "Not that I entirely blame you, either."

The Peeta I know.

"How can I convince you to tell me?" I plead.

"You've missed the mark." He says in his own private joke. I don't think it's funny, but he does.

"Katniss, the government didn't send her. I did."

My mouth literally drops. I feel something, maybe relief, escape to my shoulders. I try to form words. "What?"

"I wanted to ask her permission."

"For- what?" I ask, puzzled. What could he possibly want permission for?

Then I know.

He wants to marry me. I can't believe it. Now? After this? After all that's happened? Part of it makes sense, part of it doesn't. Maybe, in a second of light, we could embrace it.

Peeta breaks the pause. "I want to ask her if it's alright if I take you out of the hosue for awhile. You need a change of scenery."

"Oh," I say, obviously deflated.

Peeta raises an eyebrow. "That's okay, right? Don't you trust me?"

I search him for a moment. Do I trust him? I've never really trusted anyone.

I think about it- a little too long. Obviously Peeta is put off my my long pauses.

I look at this boy, this person, and think of everything we've both seen. Things no people should ever have to see, much less children from District 12. I think of all he's sacrificed to keep me alive. Even during the games, when things were bleak, he always kept me first.

_Always thought of me._

I rarely deserve it. Scratch that. I never deserved it. And now as he asks me a simple, honest question- I drop my sides and, for once, allow him to take a small, vulnerable chip of myself. I kiss him, and the hunger returns. It's just a small spark- alighting my chest, making my fingers tingle. If I was foolish, I'd let it take me up and carry me away, but I don't. I want to stay here forever. Finally, we part and I lock his eyes to mine.

"Yes." I answer finally, honestly, vulnerably. "Always.


	3. three

**3.**

Peeta's plan is to escape to the woods. Well, technically 'escaping' is an incorrect term- more like retreating.

The buzz of the usually alighted electric gate now fades from sound. There is a stillness now, an absence that shrieks of opportunity. I look out my window and past row after row of massacred roofs to see the old relic.

Will it ever be charged up again? Or is this the beginning of all taboos of the previous regime, the Capitol- freedom, peace and glorious wandering?

"There's nothing stopping us now." Peeta says, distracting me from my vigilante daydreams. I turn and see him, pouring over the hand-drawn maps I constructed a few years back. We're excellent navigators now, Peeta and I. I guess thats what death matches can do to you.

As of late, we've been searching for the perfect spot. We, meaning Peeta. He spots a patch of terrain that lies just west of District 12, which he's now circled with a red marker. It's in what was previously sectioned off as restricted land, before everything came falling down. There's a flatland at the foot of the mountains with good forrests and a small river that runs through it.

"Yes, I see. But what exactly are we going to do once we get there?" I ask, a little too impatiently.

He turns to me. "What do you do best?"

Hunt. I hadn't realized how much I truly missed it- the sounds of arrows ripping through the woods, the perfect precision- the coolness of the air, open sky directly overhead.

The stillness when no one was around. Incomparable.

I smile at him- my first real smile in weeks, really, and speak. "Perfect."

* * *

><p>My mother arrives with two guards on either side of her shoulders. Apparently she is in high security status because she's been promoted to 'knowledgable healer'. I suppose that is better than 'unknowledgable healer'- a better euphemism for me.<p>

We cry over Prim. Peeta excuses himself. When he returns, he brings tissues and a tray of sugar cookies adorned with sailboats and ripping tides.

"Thank you." My mother says, and blows her nose on a tissue.

Peeta, as always- speaks for me, capturing the words I cannot say my self. He patiently brings my motehr up to date with my progress- the shrieking nightmares and bloody hands have stopped- sort of. He expresses our desire to leave District 12- if not indefinately, then for a short while, to catch our breath. He assures her we cannot recover in the ruins or we'll go mad. Peeta tells her we will be alright- that I trust him now and he will take care of me.

"I don't doubt that." My mother says. "After all that's happened- " She looks like she's going to cry again but surprisingly, keeps her composure.

It's a first for her.

At night, Peeta sits at the edge of my bed and looks out again. I'm tucked safe under the mountain of covers, but I'm still afraid.

"Do you think she'll be alright- my mother?" I ask placidly.

"Yes, I think she'll be fine." Peeta admits. "She loves you, and she trusts me."

A warmth wells up in my throat for him. It's gratitude. Complete gratitude and disbelief and- what else? I recognize it, coming in waves, flickering at my feet, threatening to abandon my senses and take over.

It's hunger.

The sensation worsens when he leans over me to give me a small goodnight kiss. I sigh silently as he stands up and leaves the room. All the hunger bubbles up in a foam, then disintegrates.

My mind wanders to the idea of our new adventure- one not meant to possibly take our lives, but to save them. I crave the chance to hunt- to do something for myself for once- and uncovered my black bow from District 13 with fervor.

It sat on my dresser now, a sleek black thing that awoke to my touch.

"Katniss?" A soft voice belonging only to my mother penetrates the room.

"Yes." I answer.

She hesitates, although I can feel her feet etching on the floorboards. "Can I come in?"

I laugh wryly to myself. "Of course."

She creeps in. I remember her only as a frail woman, but now she seems strong. She sits on my bed and I prop myself up on the pillows, looking into her deep eyes.

"I wasn't sure if he had left." She says sheepishly.

I smiled. "He's gone back home. To pack, I guess."

"He's so good." She says suddenly. "Peeta." I can sense her love of him already.

I brush a hair out of my face, desperate to erase the hunger his absence causes. "How is everything?"

Her face forms a frown. "Have they not told you?"

"No. They're not supposed to tell me anything."

"Oh." My mother replies.

A minute passes by and I know what her next words are.

"Are you- better, Katniss?"

I let the question settle like dust before me. I invisibly blow it away. "Yes, I think so."

"You're not coming back, are you?"

I hold her gaze. "I think it's better that way."

"Peeta said-"

"He lied." I look down at the sheets, then to the scar on my arm. "I can't live here anymore. There's too many memories...and-"

My mother's watching me now, ready to detect any sign of instability. I force myself to straighten up.

_I can't give her any reason to worry, _I think to myself_. I want her to be able to know I'm safe- happy even, even if given the chance we never speak again._

"You know I won't get better here. It's impossible." I feel myself slipping. I just want her to leave. Seeing her well adjusted is enough. It's enough to give me another reason to move forward. But now I feel ashamed the process is so difficult myself.

She understands the rest, because she kisses my head and holds me, swaying me side to side, as I imagined she did when I was a child. But I'm not a child anymore and we both know that. Now I have to fend for my own. As I have. As I always have.

She sings softly, some sort of lullaby. It's the last thing I need right now with emotions all askew, yet it is soothing. It's a strange, familiar song and I haven't heard her sing it since before the war.

_Pack up all my care and woe, Here I go, Singing Low,_

_Bye, Bye Blackbird_

_Where somebody waits for me, Sugar's sweet, So is he,_

_Bye, bye blackbird_

_Nobody here, can understand me,_

_What hard luck stories, they all hand me,_

_Make my bed and light the light,_

_I'll arrive late tonight,_

_BLackbird, bye bye._

She sings the last stanza with a broken voice, yet her reserve is strong. She combs her fingers through my cropped hair and holds me close. "Oh, Katniss."

"I'm sorry- I'm sorry I keep-" by my voice trails off, abandoning me at the improper moment. Where is my strength? "I'm sorry this keeps happening.." I finish, weakly. I'm sorry for everything.

"Never apologize. It was me, Katniss. I'm sorry I was never strong enough. For you and- "

_Don't say it_, I think to myself.

"For Prim." She finishes. "I was ashamed. I was so ashamed."

We hold each other there until everything is alright. The world beams a little brighter when she slips out. I am in a mix of tears and light expressions when I hear the soft pruum of the car and see the headlights dissapear down Victor's Village.

I am silently rejoicing, despite it all, because I know something now. I finally understand what has happened. My mother, after so long, has found what she lost that night of the mine explosion. After the tragedy that claimed my father, and even worse than that- her spirit.

Or so I had thought.

For the longest time, I had bitterly believed it was forever gone. Now I know for sure she has found it.

"Peace." I whisper, very softly. "She's finally found her peace."


	4. four

**4. **

We set off in the early morning. I can't believe my life has fit snugly into a small pack to my side. It moves with me, a leather hide synchronized with the gentle sway of my hips. I've used it many times before, as it's easily hidden and has the capacity to hold a perfect armful of arrows and plenty of water. As my mother remembers it, it previously belonged to her, as a gift. Maybe from my Father, I don't know. She never specified.

_And now it belongs to me_, I think to myself. _Look at me, Father. I've brought Panem crashing to the ground. All the glorious byproducts of the Revolution. _I have the smallest notion that he would be proud, but I'm surprised by the stab of grief that allocates my chest.

How many things he missed.

I wondered what he would have done during the Reaping, what his response would have been. I allow myself to pretend he was there with me, all along, cheering me on in the arena, praising me on quick-thinking or clever manuvering. Teaming up with others. Killing quickly.

I try to remember the last memory of my father, but I can't. It must have been a few days before the accident- playing in the meadow while he chatted with the other local miners? Helping mother feed Prim while he looked onward, eyes filled with pride and love? Or was there something else in him? Maybe a reluctance, a rebellious spirit, an unwavering hunger for freedom and ultimate liberation? The conversations I would have had with him.

Maybe I hadn't known him at all.

I take one last glance at our homes in Victor's Village, then seek the seclusion of the woods.

"Ready?" Peeta asks.

"Ready."

We start off at the gate, tucking under it. I thought that Peeta might need help since he's never ducked fences before, but he does just fine, running off beside me as we take to the west.

I shoot a pair of rabbits at middday and we make a fire by the babbling brook filled with smoothed out stones.

"I feel almost like we're in the Games again." Peeta says. It's a dangerous comment, because the memory could spark an adverse reaction in either one of us.

This time it doesn't.

"Yes, except for no one is after us." I say.

"You sure about that?" Peeta offers and I splash him with the water playfully. The sun is out now and it's very warm. I suppose we're nearing Spring or early summer now, but with all the days cooped up inside or knocked out with sleep syrup, I've lost track.

I've eaten my fill, so we settle near the bank and Peeta gathers me in his arms. We glance up at the bright blue sky, transfixed by it.

"Everything is so vivid here." I say quickly, drawn in by the warm breeze that rustles at my temples. I can't see Peeta, but I know he's smiling.

"It's even better with you here." He says. "It's almost-shiny. But in a good way."

'Shiny' describes how Peeta can differentiate between what is real and what was fabricated by the Capitol during his sessions. The very thought of him in pain sends a spiraling sensation through my mind.

I brush it off and roll over onto my stomach and study him. I want to tread lightly because I'm afraid of him suddenly losing himself.

"Peeta." I say, as kindly as I can. I always say his name as a precaution. "Are you ever angry at me?"

He looks puzzled. "For what?"

I play with a lock of my hair and try to hide the pain in my words.

"After everything that's happened- " I allow a pause. Millisecond long flashes dub in front of me. Being picked at the reaping. Being ignored. The terror at the games. Terror. I laugh to myself. That's an understatement.

Then, being in hiding. Keeping watch by night. Festering wounds. Horror at each corner. The cave- kissing. Lots of that. For the camera. Losing his leg- what else?

I can't imagine the scope of damage that proceeded after the Rebels picked me up from the bloody arena. What he suffered, what types of torment he endured- what kind of person went into the fiery furies and return with any trace of themselves remaining?

Who can be okay after that?

Peeta is more than okay. He's looking at me now, eyes blank of any trace of damage. For all anybody knows, we could be two simple people wandering the woods. No past. An unseen future.

If only.

I take a deep breath. "After everything that's happened- everything you went through- you aren't upset by any of it?"

He assures me it's in the past.

"I don't understand..." I try to say. A twinge of anger almost scalds my view. Why am I angry now? I take a guess that it has something to do with his unyielding desire to move on- to seek out something better.

It's annoying, really. More so because it proves such a difficult task for me. Me, Katniss Everdeen, the queen of grudges and tab-keeping. I don't forget. I don't depend. At least not until now.

I choke on my next question. "So you forgive me, then?"

The question takes him offguard and I can see his mind working. The question is off-character, I'm aware. During the Games, I was only concerned with debts I owed. How to repay. How to repay so I could finally be free, not owing anyone anything. Being equal.

Fair game.

"Of course I forgive you." He says finally.

The streaks of anger bleed out of my face and I realize the softness of the grass below. I'm utterly exhasberated. "I don't know how you do it."

"It's simple really." his eyes are closed now.

"How?

He peeks at me, then sits up. I'm afraid I've said too much, beause he seems almost menacing.

My Peeta. Menacing.

He puts his hands on my shoulders and looks at me very deeply in the eyes. I try to look away, but each time I do, those blue eyes hold me accountable, fixated on my every move. He is staring at the very fabrication of my soul.

Or at least it feels like it.

"Because I love you."

The moment is perfect until we hear the fatal swoosh of an incoming spear.

* * *

><p><em>Don't you want to know what happens next? I could tell you...or I could wait. You could help speed the process along. Hint below: <em>

_Reviews, rantings and the like are always lovely and appreciated. :]_

_-Jo_


	5. five

**5.**

Someone is after us.

A shriek barely escapes my lips just as another spear skewers the ground beside Peeta. At this point, I'm in full arena mode- fists tight, eyes wide and alert, adrenaline rushing so fast I can hear my heart pumping blood in my ears.

Peeta perks up. "Katniss?"

I jump to my feet and pull the arrow taut, poised to kill. I hold it into the dark wall of trees, listening.

Nothing.

"Katniss, are you alright?" Peeta asks and I turn to him. Now my weapon is angled point blank at thim. He backs away slowly. This isn't a time to be aruging. "Didn't you see that?" I ask.

He's utterly perplexed. "See what?"

I point at the first spear that is supposedly wedged in the nearby tree- and find it's gone. Both are gone.

Am I alright?

I'm not sure whaich one of us is crazy- the one who saw it or the one who did not. Now I'm trembling as I lower the bow.

Had I imagined it?

The quickness of the spear, the ripping of the wind around it- the sudden explosion of terror in my heart. Had I truly hallucinated? It couldn't be. It was so real. It was so much- like the arena. I try to catch my breath, but everything's all caught up and mangled in my chest.

Peeta's hands are on me now and he's probing my eyes with his. "Katniss?"

"Stop." I say, pushing him away. I feel betrayed. Betrayed by myself. Even my instincts played into a foolish moment of insanity. What frightens me more is the quick realization that follows:

What else have I imagined?"

"What did you see?" Peeta asks, obviously concerned. I shake my head once, twice, trying to forget the fear. But it's so real- so fresh.

"I thought I saw-" I begin, but stop midsentence, collapsing onto a tree. Peeta watches as I gently let myself down, sitting at the base with haunted eyes. I'm reliving every moment of it now- trying to figure out where I miscalculated.

Where I went wrong.

"Katniss, talk to me." Peeta says.

I fire back out of fear. "What's the use? What's the use when it's all just some sort of- hallucination in my head?"

This stops him cold. His face softens, but I've startled him. Maybe enough to leave me alone. Just for a few minutes. Just for enough time to gather my thoughts. I have to think.

"Welcome to my world." He says dryly, and picks up a small stone, hurling it across the brook. It skims the surface a few times before sinking to the bottom. "Now imagine you love me."

I want to say I don't have to imagine, but now isn't the time.

"Now picture those voices are telling you to kill me. In the most brutal ways. There's no going back. They don't stop for anything. They're-" he searches for the words. "Cruelly unyielding."

His depiction is calming me down, if only slightly. Still, I am gripping my bow so tightly that my knuckles show white.

"Does that still happen?" I ask.

"Only sometimes."

The thought seems to stir something in him. Now I've disturbed him.

_Good job with that, Katniss, _I mumble sarcastically to myself. _Way to help with the whole traumatic thing._

He's walking away now, so I try to bring him back. "I just saw- spears. Coming towards us. Kind of like Cato's, from the Games. They seemed so real."Until they dissapeared. But I don't mention this. "I was scared, okay? I thought that even now, even here- even after all this-"

"Someone's hunting us." Peeta finishes. "Yeah, I know the feeling."

I try to harden my resolve. To stay stiff and indifferent, as I always have. It's the only way to survive. But now, as I'm here, staring into nothingness- complete solitude- I understand how difficult a concept it is to grasp.

"We've brought the Capitol down. Real or not real?" Peeta asks.

"Real."

"And everyone who has ever been at our throats is dead- Real or not real?"

Not real. Surely there's someone- a begrudged relative of Former President Snow, or a Capitol loyalist, or a drunken Haymitch-

"Real." I muster. "That's real."

"If those are both real- as you say they are, Katniss, then you've made an error in judgement."

My puzzled expression bades him continue.

"Katniss, don't you realize it? We're safe. We're-" He seems to choke on the word, as if it's an incredible concept. "Free."

_Free._

The tears don't begin until it all sinks in, gripping me like a redeeming love. And even then, I'm reluctant. It is this idea, this notion, that ultimately means hope for me. For us. We don't have to run. At least not yet.

This is Peeta's battlecry.

* * *

><p>"Tell me something interesting," Peeta says, as the walk becomes tiring and we're reaching some sort of clearing in the trees. Overhead, the sky still bemas a bristling brightness. We have a long way to go until we finally make camp, and the days are growing longer.<p>

"Like what?" I ask.

"Anything. Anything at all." He contiues. "Surely there must be something-"

"How about how I got my sister's goat?" I ask.

He shakes his head. "You've told me that already. Don't you remember?"  
>I jog my memory. Yes, I remember it now. In the cave, in that darkness where he gripped onto life itself and I tried to distract him and the audience of Panem with some embellished story of an old housegoat.<p>

"I'm surprised you still remember that," I say, taking a seat on the open grass and sprawling my arms towards the sky.

"I remember every second I'm with you." He says.

It's one of those phrases that really make me feel horrible, but he's being completely honest. Peeta continues. "If I was going to die out there, as I believed I would going in, I wanted to have a good memory to exit with."

"A memory with me." I say to myself.

"Yes."

I turn to smile at him. He's a little sunburned, pink halfmoons forming under striking blue eys. His blonde hair, recently tripmmed back home, now lays a little shaggly, threatening to drop over his eyes any day. He looks incredibly steady.

Always steady. I think to myself. Always sure. Something burns in the back of my throat.

"Why?" I ask. "What is it about me, anyway? Be honest. Because I- I don't understand." I drop my gaze to the grass and begin tugging it out by the fistful. "I don't understand why-" I want to say more, but I'm afraid my voice will be ridiculous again and break.

"I thought I told you before. You don't think I should-"

I shake my head immediately. No, regardless of anything, I want him to. And I really believe life will not be fine if he doesn't._ I need him to._

I just don't understand how he could love me so much.

"I'm just- rough- around the edges." I say, still looking for the right words. Rough around the edges, that doesn't even begin to cover it. Selfish. Angry. No, not angry- furious. Defiant. Untrusting, even when I don't have a reason to be. And cold of feeling, even when every fiber of my being is enflamed.

Like now.

"Even if I told you, you wouldn't begin to understand." He says, brushing a brown lock from my eyes.

"Well, try." I ask. I'm secretly pleading here.

He shakes his head, a smile playing across his face now. We endure the silence, then he plants a kiss on my forehead and helps me up on my feet. We turn and head out of the clearing, walking side by side in silence.

I hear variations of my mother's song playing among the mockingjays in the forest. Some are tossing the melody around, playing with pitch, while others orchestrate an otherworldly harmony. They float back to me something like this:

_Make my bed, light the light_

_I'll be home, late tonight,_

_Blackbird, Bye Bye._

We settle in a tree tonight, because I don't trust the forest, and we're not near water anymore. I brilliantly construct a sort of hammock device, and we slip up into it, very close and warm against the coolness of the near mountains. I'm not sure where the day will take us, but I find respite in the rest that I can look forward to. Maybe it will be enough to keep me going for a few days before we find the valley.

"Goodnight." Peeta says, his voice tickling my ear. I try to find his face in the darkness by sketching a line up his arms that are wrapped around me. I do this very slowly- so slowly I'm sure he doesn't notice it. I feel two eyes- closed, a row of eyelashes on each. His cheeks are warm from the sun exposure, and his nose is perfectly aligned so that it catches the worst of the rays. I detect some sort of stubble near his jaw, but it's very light.

We might be nearing eighteen, or nineteen now, I thought. I hadn't had a real birthday since I turned 16. The Spring before the Reaping. I push away the incoming shudder. It's all behind us now. It is all in the past- forgotten.

I try again to focus on Peeta's face. Moonlight streams in through the trees, but it's too dim for me to see him well. I wonder if he's asleep, but he's holding me too tightly to believe that.

What had he left behind, I wonder, back in District 12? I think of the grand house standing still next to mine- and the rubble pile down the street where his parents' bakery used to stand. I don't think he had the heart to remove it, as tragic as it was. The new regime had rewarded us both with a large sum of money- and I had believed he planned on rebuilding the bakery. Maybe creating a studio where he could paint. Paint more of those delicate flowers, or perhaps the nightmare-inducing scenes from the Games. I had never asked.

I intertwine my hand with his and find his lips with my own. They're warm too- and very soft, almost like the petals of a flower, really. That's the only way I can describe it. And when he's moving, it's like I'm awakened by his touch, as he kisses me back. So he is awake.

The kisses stray to my cheekbones and over my eyes. There is one that falls under my jaw when I tilt my head back, but this is a very dangerous kiss because it makes the hunger come back. I wonder why he does this, because it is only torment for both of us.

"Stop being such a masochist." I whisper, almost inaudibly.

"Sorry. Can't help it." He says, trying to conceal a smile in his words.

I can feel his heart beating, slow and steady against my chest. I run my hands down the delicate buttons of his shirt, trying to mask the racing rhythm in my own. The thought occurs. Maybe if we were in a real bed, somewhere in the mountains, where no one could detect us, I would love him. But there is so much obligation in giving yourself away, and most would expect us to be married first. And then there's always children to worry about- children who could grow inside, children with wide eyes and inquisitive minds, so incompatible with the cruel world.

Any child of ours might have to deal with horrible things to come, things that could be even more horrible than the Hunger Games. Who really knows? I feared for Prim, and she was unreachable. What kinds of things could happen to humanity when I had died? And would the ones I brought into this world truly go on without my fierce protection?

It's too heavy for me to think about. I try to remember we're safe and no one is after us. I go over my mental reminder routine, like old times.

_My name is Katniss Everdeen. I was in the Hunger Games. I survived. I helped the Rebels overpower the Capitol. I lost Prim. I have Peeta. We are going to go away to heal, maybe, or something else. Anything. Anywhere other than District 12. Away from all of it._

I fall asleep at this thought, my best friend pressed against my cheek.

* * *

><p>I lie awake, but it's not morning. I sense by the fresh coolness that it's almost dawn, but the darkness still lingers over everything.<p>

I hear whistling. First, I believe it's just the mockingjays, but I hear a rustle of branches below and I see lights.

There are people down there.

I try to shut my eyes and brace myself. Maybe it's all my imagination. Another hallucination. Or maybe not.

The sounds of footsteps grow closer and closer, until they're directly below us. Peeta and I are high enough that we can't be found, but I can see a dozen or so people with torches moving below.

Peeta's breath is very slow. He's sleeping. I try to peek out over the hammock to catch a glimpse of the crowd- some are holding candles, while others are humming strange songs. They file through our section of the forest, with the small ones behind. Children, I suspect. One is very small, but quick as she shuffles up the tree Peeta and I are sleeping in.

I'm terrified when she reaches us, oil lantern in hand. Some feat.

"Are you Cecilia?" The little girl asks, revealing her face against the soft dawn light. "They said Cecilia ran off." her eyes dart to Peeta now, and I feel like I should protect him, but it's only for a moment.

What am I supposed to say? I didn't know anyone lived this deep in the woods, but it was certainly possible. But still, it would be easy to detect them. Only under eyes of the Capitol would they go unseen. And then it dawns on me.

_They must be Capitol loyalists._

The little girl smiles sweetly. "Come on down with me. We can walk together." I blimp out carefully to not rouse Peeta, then follow her down the tree and shuffle in with the others. I feel almost in a daze as I do this. If this is some sort of fabrication of my mind, the least I can do is follow it to it's conclusion. Perhaps it will give me some sort of clue as to what to do next.

Surprisingly, no one notices as I join the group. We're all headed in one direction, and no one talks. I notice the strange dress of everyone- ankle length skirts that rustle on the ground. I stand in stark contrast with my hunting pants, boots and button up shirt, one of Peeta's. I don't have much time to think before we reach a ledge. Everyone files around a small lantern and box. The box is ornate- it almost resembles that of my mother's wedding presents back home. Delicate jewelry boxes imprinted with exquisite flowers. Everyone sits down and I kneel behind the little girl. Still no one takes notice of me, a total stranger, following their party in the alighting morning. I still halfway believe that I'm imagining it.

An older man with a beard and outdated trousers steps forward, overlooking the ledge. He clears his throat, carrying a blithe note of authority.

"We're here today to remember Muriel Thompson." He begins placidly, gripping the box. "Muriel was a beloved wife and friend. She loved sewing and babies. She took pride in her work as a midwife."

Midwife? I feel like I'm a hundred years old. I've had strange hallucinations, but this one tops them all.

Next the man reaches into the jewelry box and pulls out a handful of what can only be ashes. He seems to hold them out to the group, as if someone among us is doubtful to what they really are. Then, a gust of wind sweeps up and he throws it to the sky. It catches on the breeze and scatters all over the valley.

The group ends the procession in- what else- singing- haunting, a sad song about life and brighter places. Then, another- much like the waltzes thrown by the Capitol on the victory tour. It is a beautiful song, full of life and hope- and I find myself ironically swept up into the harmony, listening for the dips in tune- when the men would join in with alto or baritone voices- or when the women and children would bleat high, their songs carrying out high above the treetops.

I almost feel enchanted before a strong grip settles on my arm and I know someone has finally seen me.


	6. six

**6. **

The woman who's holding me has bright blue eyes that remind me of Peeta's. There is concern on her face that keeps me from protesting as we weave through the crowd. She's pulling me through the mass of people, trying not to disturb those who are weeping or singing, or engaging in a strange mix of both. Once we reach the woods, she stops.

"What are you thinking?" She asks quickly.

I'm in shock. "What was that back there?"

"It's not important- did you not receive our warning?" The girl shoots a few glances overhead as a row of ducks passes high above the trees. She's paranoid. I give her a strange look. I have a feeling that she's mistaken me for somebody else. I know two things at this point: I can either run or use it to my advantage.

I decide the latter.

"What warning?" I ask innocently.

She arches an eyebrow. "Not here. You need to come to the barn and get fixed up. Then we'll talk."

'The Barn' is located on the outskirts of what appears to be a small, primitive village. The houses are all white and spread out along a natural curvature in the earth. I've never seen dwellings like these before- only in Capitol- approved history books at school. But this isn't any sort of recent history- no, this is long long ago. Was long ago. Before my mother's mother was born.

Everyone from this era is supposed to be dead.

"What is your name?" She asks me as we walk. I reply quickly. "Katniss."

"What all did you see, Katniss?"

I stumble across my words. "Nothing. Just the people- singing. And the ashes up in the air." I can see it now, folding like a dark cloud across the wide expanse of open air- flying off. Scattering.

We reach the Barn. The place is a wide berth of a structure, maybe 2 stories high. It reminds me of a dilapidated, rustic version of the Cornucopia, strategically placed in the center of the Games.

When we finally reach it, she pulls me inside and throws a small flour sack at me.

"What is this?"

"Something you'll need." She says. "My name's Lizabeth Stewart, by the way."

I wave off the introduction and direct my attention to the bag. One glance inside proves my suspicions- it's full of clothes, identical to hers- a flannely overshirt that tucks into a flowing ankle length skirt with a calico pattern on it. There are woolen shoes that must be two sizes too small, and they pinch at my toes. I attempt to dress. Without hesitation, the girl named Lizabeth claws her hands through my hair and, after several attempts, creates a ballerina bun out of my messied locks. My hair is still so short, I'm not sure how she does it. All I know is, Effie would not approve of this historically themed ensemble.

"There." She says finally. "You could pass as a nobody."

I assume this is a compliment.

"I always knew they'd send someone back. I'm not sure who. But I was prepared anyway." Lizabeth explains, although it gives me nothing to go on. "I tried to tell them- the Capitol would never back down. Not from us. Despite everything."

"There must be some kind of mistake." I begin, smoothing out the pleats in my new clothing. "I was just out-" I search for the word, "Hunting."

Her face stiffens. "So you're- not from the Capitol?" I freeze at the question, trying to contain the shock that spreads like cancer through my body. And then the realization sets in. These are not just Capitol loyalists, as I believed. There is something more here, and I sense it immediately like instinct.

Sectioned off from the wars, from the recent rebellions, the overtaking. Everything has gone unnoticed. I know for certain that the Capitol doesn't exist. I looked into the eyes of President Snow moments before he died. No, it doesn't exist as a tyrannical source of oppression. At least, not anymore.

But here, it seems to be more powerful than ever before.

I glance outside the large doors to look at the dozen or so houses that line the scope of the clearing. It must be a sort of settlement. A colony.

"What kind of place is this?" I ask. "And why do I have to wear this?"

"You puzzle me. Did the Capitol send you or not?" She continues.

I throw the question back at her. "I've answered enough questions. It's your turn." I notice a pair of young boys fleeting playfully across a porch, both with matching white hair and blue eyes. Something is stirring just below the surface. Those identical eyes. I can't put it together, and it's frustrating.

"I want to know who you people are." I begin. "And why you had to bring me here-" I take a handful of the frothy stuff around my waist. It's too hot here. I can already feel beads of sweat forming at my brow. I just want to get away. The people are haunting. The clothing is too- restrictive. It's no good for running or hunting, or anything for that matter. And I hate it.

"I'm sorry." Lizabeth says. "Occasionally- the Capitol sends a special agent to come check up on us."

_Check up on us?_ What kind of place is this? I begin to feel the trickles of goosebumps edging down my back.

"Are you a part of District 13?" I ask, going out on a limb.

Lizabeth laughs at that for a second, but upon seeing my severity, stiffens. "District 13? No, no of course not. Don't you remember anything?"

"Remind me." I request quickly.

She sighs and glances me over, judging in her mind. Deciding if I'm worth trusting. I try my best to hide the scowl on my face.

It's more than curiosity: I want to know what she knows. I'm not sure why, but my resolve changes. I suddenly think of Peeta- I hope he's alright- that he is safe, with water and food- somewhere away from the crowds weeping at the ledge. I hope he's not panicked, although I know he is.

"I'm sorry." I offer, grinding my teeth. "I was just confused, that's all-"

Lizabeth interrupts me. "Well of course you are. The inner forest is no place for city people. You come out here in your fashionable outfits, trying to do odd things that compliment the season. But this isn't a place for you."

"Maybe I'm not from the Capitol." I say quickly.

The girl offers me a crooked look. "You're either from the City or from here. I've never seen you before here, so you must be from the Capitol."

"I could be from one of the Districts-"

"There are no districts. It's all wasteland. The Capitol destroyed everything after the Rebellion. There is nothing left but this."

"Did your Elders tell you that?" I shoot back.

Her eyes catch mine with a sort of distrust. The same shining blue as the boys. As everyone.

Everyone.

The intensity is so sharp that I shift the subject. "Is there anything to eat?"

Lizabeth stuffs me into the small room behind the kitchen and hands me a plate of what appears to be rice and spring shoots. I'm sitting on a rickety chair that feels as if it's about to give at any moment, yet I've never felt so warm and content with what's in front of me. Lizabeth pours a bitter tasting beverage into a tin can. I assume it's coffee- but it's utterly indistiguishable.

"That was Cecilia's favorite. I thought you might like it too- you'll be staying in her room tonight."

"Cecilia."

Lizabeth examines a strand of her platinum white hair. "Yes. She was a doctor, sent by the Capitol."

"What did she do?"

She shrugs. "A lot of things. Mainly research, on the women. She was nice."

_Was._ Something in her tone seems off-kilter to me, very wrong.

"What kind of research?"

Her face turns away. "Why?"

I try to feign indifference. "No reason. Just trying to make conversation."

A long silence passes between us. I can hear the crickets outside- it's nighttime now, and I imagine Peeta settling in for bed in a tree, or among the forrest floor somewhere. I feel so guilty, sitting with hot food and shelter. I will never stop oweing him.

I secretly despise myself at the moment and feel nauseous at the food, until I've realized it's the first meal I've seen in literal days. So I dig in, because I know he wouldn't mind. And if I'm going to escape anytime soon, I'll need all the strength I can get.

"I was really young back then. My dad wouldn't tell me. Just that the women would get really sick- and so eventually someone sent us a doctor to figure out what was going wrong." Lizabeth explains.

"Was it a type of fever?" I ask. I remember the yellow fever that would spread through District 12 every mid-summer. It picked away at the children that didn't die first from the spring rations. My mother could prescribe nothing but rest and root of a hazznut bush that would relieve a little bit of the rash. Even I could detect the pain in her eyes- the pain from one who could do nothing, yet who understood the fate awaiting them.

"No, I don't think so. Only when they were pregnant." Lizabeth's eyes are fixated on the floorboards. "They- dealt with her when someone very important died."

Lizabeth explained that the head Elder, Monson, had a wife that was expecting a baby. When both baby and mother died in labor, he turned on the doctor.

"I just remember waking up to the shouts around the village. I looked out my window and thought something was burning. It was some sort of angry mob. Everyone loved Maria." She trails off. I nod accordingly and take a bite of food.

Lizabeth picks up again in a few seconds. "Cecilia tried to explain that she did all she could. It was just an accident." She plays with a hole in the windowsill and wrings her hands, voice shaken. "I really think it was just an accident, she was only trying to help. But, there are consequences."

She doesn't have to say anything else. I understand what happened that night.

"After that, things weren't the same. We didn't want any more agents, doctors or not. It kind of seemed like there was another disease permeating the village- but this one couldn't be cured by a doctor." I feel sorry for her, almost. Lizabeth can't be much older than me- other than the tired eyes and the lackluster hair, she could be pretty.

"Do you live here alone?" I ask.

She shakes her head, trying to purge the thoughts with conversation. "My father's an elder- a lesser one. He's still out on the ledge with the others. The Wake will last until morning. But he can't know you're here."

I wonder why. I suppose she believes she's revealed enough of the village's secrets to me, because she hurries me to Cecilia's old room and locks the door.

The doctor's room is in bad condition- it's dusty, with something thick laid on the windows. There's a tiny bed with a metal frame and a few springs sticking out. I feel incredibly trapped. It's as if I'm in a cage again- unable to escape, yet tempted with the light of the moon casting rays on the floor.

I don't sleep. The nightmares rock my very core, until I'm sitting up and clutching my knees to my chest. I sleep in the itchy clothes and feel insects crawling across my feet.

To make matters worse, I am incredibly alone and afraid. At least if I had Peeta, we could stay up and talk. We could voice our fears to one another, and make each other strong. We could plan our escape. Again. We could be a team. Again.

But this is a fallacy. Because I've abandoned Peeta, if only for a minute, to investigate something I should have never be apart of. Because I've abandoned Peeta, he is alone and I am in danger.

And neither one can reach the other.

Lizabeth doesn't return the next day. Everything is still. I see no one outside. I don't hear footsteps above me or in the house. The place creaks like the wind could knock it to pieces. I take the back side of my skirt and wipe the furniture down, erasing the top level of dust and throwing enough in the air to set me in a fit of sneezes. When she finally returns, she opens the door long enough to give me a glance and push a tray of grits and crumpled bacon onto the floor. Then she slams the door after a mumbled 'sorry' and leaves me alone again.

I'm afraid I'll go insane.

Night falls again when I decide to act. I can't do this. I cannot sit, thinking of where Peeta is- if the villagers have captured him, or worse- and do nothing. I have to _move. _

But how to escape? I don't have anything- not even my own clothes, nor my bow or arrow. I should have thought to bring a knife, a nail- something. I think back to Haymitch's words in the arena.

_Remember who the enemy is._

Who is the enemy? One could argue it's no one- that same person could argue that it's everyone. It's even myself. After all, who put me in this situation? None other than myself, unless I want to blame Peeta for dragging me out here. Poor Peeta, who wanted nothing but to be free again, to look up at the sky, or at his paintings, or into my eyes- without the insidious tactics of the Capitol burning his sanity away. Peeta, who wanted peace for both of us. I would have liked to never mention the Games again, as long as I can hear him speak, or hold his hands in mine. I would forget every wrong thing in the world, give up every horrible event, for the chance to learn hope again.

I clench my fists and I stand up from sitting crosslegged on the floor, poising myself to the window. Spontaneously, I slam myself into the glass, expecting it to shatter. It's alarmingly deceptive. I hit it again. And again. Once more. It refuses to budge. Next, I try to find a crook in the glass- to see if the window opens, even a small bit. It's bolted shut, and the glass itself seems too thick.

When night falls, the only light I have is the moon. I've exhausted my efforts- everything from shouting out curses to Lizabeth, to trying to jolt the lock on the door, to attempting to use the bed post as a sort of door unhinger. Nothing works. I have never felt more frustrated or unqualified.

_Some Hunger Games Victor,_ I think aloud. Ca_n't even fight her way out of a tenement room._

I'm too tired to cry; I'm too hungry to see straight. I realize I need water, and quickly. Panic is settling in, and it's as if I'm reliving the Games in this very room- except it is even worse, because there's nowhere to run. I examine the desk in the corner- it's an ancient thing with stuck drawers and rotting wood. I've put off tearing through it for fear of finding something dreadful- namely, a dead mouse or explosive device- but now my situations leave me desperate. More than desperate. Frantic.

I flip through the files- snooping through old medical documents and Capitol-issued worksheets. The doctor, Cecilia- whoever she was, took meticulous notes with delicate cursive handwriting. At the top of the yellowing papers were names of various women- Carla Beth, Rachael, Amy, LynnAnne- and numbers below them. I assumed at first that these were important dates- perhaps days of symptoms or checkups, even- but they were too intensive to be only dates. The numbers didn't match up. They didn't make sense.

They are some sort of code.

I shuffle off the rest of the files, then stack them on the floor and pour through some medical manuscripts. The information is old and outdated- it features a dashing young President Snow on the cover with a copied signature.

"You are the future!" Reads the caption below in big, bright letters. I close the book and lay it on top of the stack next to "Neonatal Nursing for Beginners" and "Pressure Points for Childbirth". There's a love letter in there, too- signed by a code name 'John Smith'. It includes a locket that I suppose Cecilia never wore. It's a silver-stitched heart, empty and cold with a rusting chain.

I can't sleep on the creaking bed, so I settle for the floor. The nightmares aren't as bad tonight, more confusing than anything- and I dream I'm flying again. It's nice to be lost in the colors. I see Peeta too, sitting by a quiet stream with my bow in his hand. The colors seem to deliver me to him, and I can feel the green grass below my bare feet- soft as cotton and warm.

"Are you angry at me?" I ask dreamily.

He smiles sweetly. "Never, Katniss."

I reach for his hand but he holds it back. I regret it so badly it burns. I reach out again, more in desperation- and catch his face in my hands. I can feel myself waking up and losing grip of the view- but I struggle to stay under.

"Tell me you're safe!" I shout. "Tell me you're alright!"

He smiles again and nods. "Never, Katniss."

Then a maddening crowd cascades over the hills and envelops us both in angry flames.

My entire body spasms on the way out of the dream, just enough for me to unhinge the loose floorboard below. Outside, it's still dark- no sign of dawn. At least not yet. I sit up on my sore side, inspecting the floorboard that now exposes an unnatural glow from below.

Something electronic bleeps, then a word shows up across a tiny screen. It looks as if a computer is planted there, right under the floorboards. It boasts a single word, a name, in green glowing letters, and below it, a space to type.

Carla Beth Hansen.


	7. seven

**7. **

****I scramble up so quickly from the floor that the room shakes all around. After a moment of disorientation, I head to the desk in the dark corner and jam open the second drawer, filing through the mass of old papers. Finally, I come across it.

Carla Beth Hansen- 4815162342, 8621, died of post labor phyrosymphisila.

Phyrosymphisila. THe word itself sounds painful. I take the sheet delicately in one hand and stand where I am, growing still. I poise to listen, ready to detct any movement, any noise.

Nothing.

I sti back down on the dusty floor and quickly type the numbers into the foreign looking keyboard. It must be three or four years old now, but it's more intricate and sophisticated than the latest editions installed in my Victor's Village house.

I copy the numbers into the black space using the keys. 4815162342.

Denied.

Next, I try 8621, a small entanglement of stress building in my stomach.

Denied again.

This time, I try both, bracing myself as I hit the 'Enter' button.

Denied.

Could the Capitol have shut it off after catching word of Cecilia's death? Or perhaps Cecilia disbanded it herself, knowing what would happen if anyone were to find it. This throws me into even more curiosity.

I press my face against the glass window and think. Outside, firefilies light up spontaneously from place to place. One lands on the windowsill outside, glowing in increments of 1 every 8 seconds.

Phyrosymplisia.

It's a crazy idea. But I gather my thoughts and resolve and set myself to the screen one last time. I think aloud.

"P. P is- a, b, c, d, e, f, g-" I sound out the rest of the alphabet, counting simultaneously on my fingers until I reach the letter. "Fifteen."

I enter 15 into the screen.

"H. H is 8th in the alphabet."

I enter 8.

This must go on for at least a half an hour, before I've deciphered the entire word. It types out something harrowing like this:

158251814192613151291991

I silently praise myself for the effort as I hit the enter button and a tiny bleep arises from it. The words change to red and then shut off, before sliding back to reveal a handle.

I examine it for a minute. It's rusty, like a doorknob, even- meant to be turned. What have I got to lose, anyway? So I turn it.

A large creak makes me jump out of my skin as the space of wall behind the desk produces a perfect hole of escape.


	8. eight

**8.**

I am enveloped in dark.

All I hear is whizzing- a great whirling noise, and then the lights flicker on- one by one, by one, they fill up the long and clammy hallway with their light. Some shine weakly, barely fighting against the darkness. The place smells old, and mildewy as I make my way down the corridor. I'm so desperate for escape that I ignore the sounds from above- sounds of footsteps, of silverware clanking, of chairs scooting and someone shouting.

I reach the end of the hallway in a sort of daze, before descending even further into a pit of darkness by way of a cold metal ladder. I judge that I'm far underground now because my fingers are cold and the sounds from above are growing eerily distant.

The lights finally catch up and I pounce off the ladder, landing onto a cold grey concrete floor. What I see next is shocking- I am thrown into an even larger tray of confusion, one that must go on in infinity, starting at the Hunger Games and never ending from there. I entertain the thought that I'm hallucinating, but at this point, it's dangerous to question my senses.

_Remember who the enemy is. _

I gnaw at my nails as the screens come alive- I suppose they're motion sensored?- black and white pixels that show off the whole village- one that must be outside, because I can see the grass moving swiftly under the command of a strong wind. Another shows the interior of a house. Another screen portrays children playing as a girl my age looks on. Still another catches the inside of a barn- The Barn, where Lizabeth tried to disguise me- and I see two lovers kissing behind a herd of cattle.

The largest screen shows a bare room with chairs and a table of some sort. There is a centerpiece with a golden cornucopia, much like the one at the games.

"This is too much." I whisper aloud. It's not a light comment- much like Effie would say, referring to some colorful blouse or an awkward Capitol soiree. No, this is _too much_- of what the Capitol was, from it's very core. The lack of privacy, the closed doors that are, as I know, unknowingly being spied on, the secrecy of it all- proved too much for me. Because too much leads to revolution.

I pick through the small surveillance room- it must be a mere fifty square feet, with a large desk situated in the middle with a touch screen pad. This must have been where Cecilia spent her nights, apart from 'John Smith'- spying on the strange residents of Clearwater village, maybe poking fun at a secret argument in one of the houses, or watching the children with a robotic coldness. Listening in on the elder meetings.

Cecilia had left a small container of old tapes on her desk, next to a cup of what I could only guess was hot chocolate. I sift through the various volumes, my eye catching on 'Training Video'. I'm betting someone has realized I've gone missing now, so I figure I might as well learn as much as I can.

Maybe it will show a means of real escape.

I pop it in the player situated at the hem of her desk and a bright capitol logo flashes on the screen. The video itself must be at least 20 years old, because President Snow has never looked that good, or that young. His lips appear even somewhat normal, apart from the horrendous plastic surgery he must have encountered after age had finally got to him.

A pretty petite woman's head is shown on the screen. She stares directly into the camera.

"The most important thing to understand about Clearwater is-" She begins. "That it is not a community. While you are here, in training, you must be wary to avoid certain shortcomings that rookies face."

A sweeping image of a brand new Clearwater Village replaces her on the screen. The Barn stands in the middle of it all, and there are people in jumpsuits waving at the camera.

"The Clearwater Initiative is a top secret project, a genetic brainchild of President Snow, who's unwavering allegiance to his people and all of Panem, has proven successful and complimentary to his ultimate genius."

She's really laying it on thick.

_Unwavering allegiance. Ultimate Genius._ Lovely.

I try to turn my attention back to the screen.

"Bred primarily as ultimate obstacles in the 65th annual Hunger Games, this superhuman race was designed to kill- swiftly and completely. In the event of a national uprising or other emergency, the Clearwater people would be sent in as a crucial tipping point to ensure Capitol loyalty."

I push the rewind button and play it again. "Sent in as a crucial tipping point to ensure Capitol loyalty."

Again.

"Ensure Capitol loyalty."

_Who are these people? _

The video begins- carefully so, to retell the history of Panem and her various 'mutations'- species designed to put extra pep into the Hunger Games by introducing new challenges to the tributes. I try to pick out the truth from the lies embezzled in the propaganda, but it's still difficult to process.

I remember preparing for the Quarter Quell, and watching as many of the games as I could with Peeta, who would try to take notes as we watched dozens and dozens of able bodied youth go to slaughter. All for fun, right?

We had been skipping around, noting a pattern; every eight or so years, a tribute had devised a brilliant scheme when faced with utmost adversity; I had reached for the 44th when I had realized I couldn't find the 45th.

"Did we lose the 45th one?" I had asked.

Peeta had given me one of those confused looks. "I don't think so. Haymitch said we had the whole volume here- from 1 to 74."

I had brushed it off as nothing. Until now.

The 45th Hunger Games must have never aired. That, or it was revoked- from ever being watched by the citizens of Panem. But why?

I'm about to find out, until something on the large screen draws my attention. In the poshly decorated room, a group of older men- a few I recognize, more I do not- take their seats together and begin some sort of meeting. I think it's a secret, because most of them keep looking around, or checking their pocketwatches, or tapping their fingers on the desk in paranoia.

I lunge around for some sort of sound, and finally produce a remote with the lever. I pound it like a madwoman.

"- was some sort of plan to head north first, before determining the place of-"

The sound falters a little bit, before stabilizing again. Old equipment.

The man from the Wake on the ledge a few mornings ago speaks up, clearing his throat. It sounds like he's speaking into a soup can, but I can make out the words clearly enough.

"I don't think we stand a chance on our own. We were not ever considered."

"Then what do you suggest?" Another man, a younger one, puts forward.

"You know exactly what I'm suggesting."

A few look in horror at what the man has just said, as if it is some sort of taboo.

"Boyko, there are children there-" One begins.

"It's not fair to attack without warning." Another chimes in.

The man named Boyko stands up at this, obviously infuriated.

"Not fair to attack? Not fair to attack? I'll tell you what is not fair! What is not fair, is to keep our people in utter ignorance for a half-century, before leaving us out here to die off!"

The oldest man, seated center, calms him with a simple gesture of the hand. "It's not sensible."

"They used us." The man offers again, quietly. "They killed our people."

"I realize this."

An awkward man who's balding from the front offers a suggestion. "What about the girl? Lizabeth?"

"What do you mean?" Boyko asks.

"Well," He replies. "Lizabeth lived in the Capitol as a child, didn't she? She knows the Capitol ways. She opened up her home for-"

It is obvious that Cecilia's name is a cursed word.

"For the doctor." The man covers smoothly. "Perhaps she could give insight."

"I've got some insight for you." Boyko boils over again. "Blow them to hell!"

The whole place erupts in a fit of verbal struggle. Everyone's shouting at one another, some for blood, others for rational means. Whatever rational is to these people. I sit back and watch, noticing the humanity in every one- there is some sort of fight going on. Not just in the room, for that much is obvious- but inside. Inside, somewhere between what has been fabricated in the capitol, and the truth of mortality below it, lies a tragic fight. It's a fight I know too well; I fight I've shared with Peeta, with the other tributes, with Rue and Caro and the people back home in District 12. I imagine it is even harder for these people- this race, which was proposed as a feature to the games, nothing more. An army of white-haired, sallowed eyed people taught to kill. I know that this fight will be even harder to quench.

And I have just thrown myself in the middle of it.


	9. nine

**9. **

I notice a hidden desk of drawers on my way up to Cecilia's room. As I ascend back from the secret place, I examine it closely.

Rows and rows of bottles, containing different things with names I imagine my mother would know. There are herbs and the like, mixed among more sophisticated looking flasks, from the Capitol, I assume.

I sit on the dilapidated bed that creaks in response and tuck my knees in, thinking to myself. Planning. I catch the dust stirring visibly in the rays of sunshine bleeding onto the forgotten floors.

Enough is obvious. The Clearwater Village contains some sort of weapon, one that could be easily accessed and executed.

I wonder if the plans would change if the Elders knew the truth. I secretly think they wouldn't. Even knowing Snow was dead, the old regime they knew, the harshness and inhumane proximity radiating from the Capito, thier hate would not be quenched.

Maybe I'm a pessimist.

I know already, through Cecila's eyes, that these people are foreign. Mutations in the games- perhaps quarentined off to diet out. i remember Lizabeth's commentary on the infertile women.

_"All the mothers kept dying."_

I place the pieces together in my mind. Together, they form a sort of mangled jigsaw.

"They're like the jabberjays." I say aloud, mouth quivering. So they have something in common. Both Muttations. Changelings. Created for only one purpose- to serve the Capitol. And apart from that- nothing.

Or perhaps not.

Lizabeth walks into the room for the first time in days, weeks even, it seems. Her hands are carrying a tray loaded with a plate of buttered croissants, a delicate glass filled to the brim of pearly milk and some sort of roasted meat that is tawny in color.

She offers me what looks like a half-hearted smile. "You look well."

"I feel awful."

She sets down the plate. My anger is rendered useless. Instead, I focus on the meal in front of me, eating with a vengeance. The food is wonderful, as decadent as Capitol food. The flavors create a sort of momentary bliss for my aching stomach.

"Tell me about Cecilia." I say, downing the glass of milk. I feel so full now I could take on the world.

Lizabeth shrugs."What do you want to know?"

"Everything."

There is a stillness there, between us If my eyes could talk, they would be screaming, begging for an explanation that the blind spots be revealed and darkness made light.

But I'm not fooled; She would never reveal anything to me without an incentive. If I've learned anything about these people, it's that they're ruthless. I know it's already out of character enough for one of them to be hiding me in her spare room.

"I know you lived in the Capitol." I say, as threatening as possible. "That you were Cecilia's friend."

Lizabeth's blue eyes flicker for a moment, maybe in what could be surprise, but she keeps a calm exterior, lips rising only slightly. "Yes."

"If you have any sympathy, you'll tell me." I continue, reaching forth to touch her hand. It's cold, cold and hard like granite, and she retracts it back, wringing her wrists like they're contaminated.

She waits a moment, focusing on my hairline. Then her gaze crosses to my clothing- one of Peeta's shirts, a faded blue, dirty with the remains of the week. She reads me in one second.

"I'll tell if you'll tell." She says finally.

I try to hide the satisfaction on my face. I'll lie. Say I'm a wanderer. I'll embellish it perfectly with a nod of the head and lots of hand gestures. Just as Haymitch taught me. I will fabricate the greatest backstory to date.

But then a thought occurs that stirs me over again. If this revolt is being planned, wouldn't it be all the better to have her on my side? And worst yet, if Lizabeth knows everything already and is merely putting a front to test me, then it will be me with the disadvantage.

I picture her in my mind, for only a second, fixated in front of Cecila's large TV in the underground bunker, watching me fend for my life. Kill people. Mourn Rue's death with an armful of flowers. Kiss Peeta. Scramble around and hide to protect my life.

_She could already know everything. _

I feel trapped as I speak. "Have you ever heard of the Hunger Games?"

I pick up there, disclosing everything I can remember- starting from the Reaping, cutting to Peeta's good morning kiss back home, safe and sound. I don't leave out one detail of the scope of the Games, nor the visit from Snow that still leaves me with nightmares. I tell her about my recovery at my house in Victor's Village, of Greasy Sae and burnt pasta and Peeta's beautiful, frightening paintings of past times- of memories and urgent moments and people- so many faces, just like my dreams. From this point I lie, saying I wandered off to the woods, very much alone, to hunt.

When I finish, there are tears in Lizabeth's eyes. I hope my full disclosure of the events may prompt her to do likewise. If it is all for nothing, I will be crushed- the longing in my heart is almost unbearable, and it burns like a scathing wound that will not heal on its own. It is a longing for home, for a peace I never thought existed. I'm still not entirely sure if it does, but the closest I can get to it is when I am wrapped in Peeta's arms- and this is not one of those times.

I silently scold myself as my throat gives way to ache and my eyes grow warm, threatening to spill over with tears.

"So- the Capitol- as we knew it- Snow- is gone." She says, finally.

I nod.

"And District 13- it truly existed. And it overcame them, along with the others."

No one could sum it up better than that. "Exactly. And they have set up a better system now, void of injustice."

Lizabeth lets it sink in for a moment, then jumps right in. "I was born in the Capitol, 10 years after my people served as muttations in the 44th, and then the 54th Hunger Games. My father had been sent into the arena when he was young, but the Capitol allowed him his freedom- at least," She adds. "For a short while." She clears her throat- remembering.

"He married my mother- a capitol girl and they lived right outside the arena. Before I was born, there was talk that the Clearwater people were dangerous, that because of our power and our discontent towards the Capitol for what they created in us, that we would act as catalyst for some sort of uprising. My father was totally against it, or a least he always said he was. Really, I think it was fear, more than anything."

"Why?" I ask.

"I don't know. He was born in a lab. He was trained to kill. I don't know." She brushes a white hair from her eyes and fixates them on a dusty window- our only source of light. "My Uncle was elected to help President Snow. He was trained to be a peacekeeper- and ran some sort of official committee for many years. I don't remember the rest, only that he turned on the government and tried to kill President Snow."

An assassination attempt? I had never heard of that before.

"Don't look so surprised." Lizabeth adds. "They kept it real hush-hush. But it nursed a sort of hatred for our people."

"I would imagine so."

"They executed most of them." She retracted. "But it wasn't enough. The Capitol never does things half-way. They said they were just starting a little colony. They wanted to grand us- what was the word?" She gazes up at the ceiling. "Liberation."

I nod to myself. How things went on behind closed doors. I imagine Snow sitting at his desk, rose in hand, giving over the orders to exile the Clearwater people.

"So they sent us out, in rounds. My father was respectable, so they saved us for last. My mother's family consisted of very wealthy politicians, so I was allowed to stay up until my twelfth birthday- then she died, and I lost my tie to freedom." Lizabeth says this all very fast, as if running barefoot over ashes. For a moment, I feel her pain: living in the absence of one parent while the other slowly deteriorates.

"Everyone living in the village now was fixed-" She continues. "So they don't remember life outside this village."

"And how is it you do?" I ask, intertwining my own fingers with unease.

She offers a twisted smile. "I made them think otherwise. I saw how my father acted, when the memories were stripped from him. I acted the same, and they left me alone. That was before any real damage was done."

A chill runs down my back and my mind wanders to Peeta.

_As if I am not tormented enough._

I don't want to hear more, but I ask anyway. "Then what happened?"

"We lived in virtual peace, for awhile. They sent us agents to check up on us. That's why I acted so ignorant around you." She says. "I figured you were some sort of agent and you were suspicious. My job was always to indict the Capitol agents and try to blend them in, as to not alarm the villagers."

I remember her rushing me into the barn, to quickly dress me in the same grey frock as everyone else. Now, it all made sense.

Lizabeth is in her own place now, recalling everything.

"As the years went by, we set up our own little system of governance- a system with twelve elders, each representing a certain sect of the group. There are some mixed children, like me- and the twin boys you saw- Beau and Brett are their names. Their mother was secretly married to my father's friend when the Capitol pushed us out- it was the biggest scandal ever."

I press the matter. "How did Cecilia wind up here?"

"She was sent when a dozen women died in childbirth." Lizabeth explains. "But she was doomed from the start. The night I told her I remembered everything, that the Capitol Fixation hadn't worked on me, that was the night she told me how Monson's son wanted to run away with her."

"Monson's the main elder." I remember the cold expression cast my way, my thudding heart at the chance to be captured again. To be punished, again.

Lizabeth confirms this with a nod. "Monson had him killed for it. His own son. Passed it off as cholera. Can you imagine?"

The horrible thing is, I can.

"I know things no one else knows. "Lizabeth says. "Everything the Elders know about the Capitol is either directly or indirectly associated with Cecilia."

"What do they know?" I ask.

"Not as much as I do. They know there is a place called the Capitol. And in the beginning, they were fixed to believe that they were on good terms. And until the mothers started dying off, it actually worked."

I'm trying to get everything straight. "So- Cecilia told them more about the Capitol?"

"On the night of her trial, 3 years ago- she told them everything. And what's worse is, she spilled that Snow wanted to bring the Clearwater children back to the arena- as muttations in the 74th annual Hunger Games." Lizabeth pauses. "That really caused a commotion."

I don't hear the last part. I am still transfixed on this new notion.

_The 74th Hunger Games. My turn to die._

These people were scheduled to fight me. I imagine if it had been them, not the wolf-mutts, who frighteningly resembled the dead tributes, had confronted us in that last strike of the Games. I secretly wonder what they would have done. If Lizabeth herself had been a part of them- ordered for massacre. I entertain the thought of seeing those white, angelic faces with glowing white hair tearing me to shreds.

I try to shake the thought from my mind.

"So they killed her in their anger- their only source of freedom, in my opinion. And since then they've been plotting. They're trying to access the defamatory bomb, located somewhere in the-"

I cut her off immediately. "What bomb?"

"The bomb- that would detonate in the event of revolt against the Capitol, by any outside forces. To prevent anyone from reaching us to fight for them."

_That's it. That's the weapon. _

"Why?" I ask. The question rings loud, a screeching note of a word that permeates from my throbbing curiosity.

Lizabeth leans over and locks eyes with me and speaks very slowly, in an ice cold tone that only I can hear.

"Because we're unstoppable."


	10. ten

**10.**

When I was very young, and still in school, my father would come home from work, covered head to toe in soot and ask me what I wanted most to be.

"Like you." I would say, almost everytime. "Just not dirty."

Then he would laugh- a great funny laugh that would fill up the house before hoisting me on his shoulders and parading into the kitchen, to the surprise of my unsuspecting mother.

"I think Katniss is going to be a great leader someday." He would say casually, imprinting kindness and care onto my young mind.

I don't know why the memory appears to me, now of all things. I am not a leader, nor was I ever; the closest I was to a leader was a figurehead. A symbol of hope for District 13. For all of Panem. But now where am I?

_Where am I?_

My head is spinning when I wake up. I try to focus on the wide expanse of the sky, glittered with stars that are on display just outside my window.

If I was a leader, I would not be here. I would not have unconsciously catapulted myself into this place, to be scrutinized and run over with violent plans and ruthless endeavors. I realize that I'm shaking. I can't stop it, even as I lay back down, positioning my side so it avoids most of the bony nodes in the mattress. I fold my hands over my eyes and shut it all out- the words uttered over the Elder's meeting- the explanation offered by Lizabeth. Muttations. Revenge. Targets.

_Too much. _

What can I do? It's not as if I can simply go and try to re-adress the Elders. I imagine a fate similar to Cecilia's. Maybe if I offered proof? But how? I could show them the bunker. Tell them about the Games, how the Capitol was brought down. I try in my mind, to picture what they want- revenge? Or something else, maybe.

A reason to keep living. A way of escape from the Capitol's twisted schemes.

They would have to become mockingjays. Adapt. Rise again. I'm convinced it's the only way to stop them from destroying everything.

I stare back at the stars again and wish, for the millionth time- that Peeta would be here beside me. He's more levelheaded; he's a better speaker than me. I've always been frustrated or awestruck by his incredible way of words. The wish for him stabs me deep- it's a sort of pain I can't take with everything else heaped over me. It is only comparable to my time in District 13, when I knew he was being tortured. I will not relive that again.

My exhaustion paralyzes me into a death like state of sleep. I wake up half a dozen times over the course of what feels like weeks, waking to Lizbeth with food or empty stillness. I gain consciousness for merely a second before I slip back under, held hostage by my nightmares.

These are worse than ever before.

I am covered in blood for the duration of them, cast in front of a large screen, held down by metal bars. I am watching the Games- sections of all 75, with extra additions edited in for the sole purpose of unhinging my sanity.

I see Rue. Then Peeta. They both die- frequently, as if to remind me that no one is safe, not even me. Prim is there, too- and she floats in front of me in a fog-like foam, hair white, transformed almost.

There is an army behind her, of the Clearwater people.

She looks back at them, then runs to me. I can almost feel her hands in mine- feel the warmth of a ray of sun gracing us both.

"Flee." She says, simply, before disappearing into a sea of faces.

I run very fast. I don't stop until I am out of the Bunker, climbing up through the tunnel that leads to a trapdoor beneath the behemoth barn in the middle of the Village. The sole command of my dead sister has sent me into some sort of mental tailspin- and I awake, frantic, scrambling to enter the code into the screen under the floorboards, to pry open the door under the desk, crawling down the shoot, past the display of medicines and several gadgets lying free on Cecilia's desk.

I just start running, for the trees. Once I'm beneath them, I can feel safe again. Or whatever feels closest to safe. I am flying even until my lungs give out- I taste the freshness in the air that can only mean dawn is quickly approaching.

I reach the funeral ledge by morning and watch the sun rise quickly over the mountains. I have a single priority- get as far away from Clearwater as possible. Whatever it takes. Find Peeta. And continue with the plan- our plan, to escape this madness that is so prevalent.

I have to stop every few minutes to reassure myself this is really happening. It is hard to believe, but the reality has not left me this time.

I have escaped. I am free.

I make camp by a stream that turns all the grass around it into a brilliant green color. The water is clear, and I drink with a fiery fervor. I still don't have any tools to hunt, and I silently scold myself for not taking anything on the way out, anything to hunt with. I want my bow, arrows. How quickly I could send those fatal things, swishing through the air at the speed of light.

I'm able to devise a small net with the thick strings of the skirt I'm wearing. I wish I had my old clothing back, complete with a breathable tunic and my boots. The slippers on my feet are no use against the rocky ground, and my feet are blistered and bruised.

I'm just fine until night falls.

I build a fire; it's easy, by just using the heat of a handful of black rocks and some tender harvested from tree bark. I set them together and blow small streams of air until I see smoke. It grows, billowing, until it is the only light I see. I'm far enough away from the Village that I know no one will detect me out here.

No one but Peeta.

I devise a scheme to find him- I will wander northbound, from our source, trying to track him. I doubt he's returned to District 12 without me. That would be out of character. My best guess is that he's wandering too, probably close to this location- living off of what he learned in the Games. A smile peeks across my face at that- the boy with the bread, finally resourceful enough to live out here.

If only he was with me.

I push all the worry from my mind and lay down to rest, soaking in the warmth that recedes from the ground from that day.

It is when the hallucinations return that I fear for my life. This time, the whole forest is engulfed in flames around me, yet I feel no heat from it. On the contrary, I feel chilled, my fingers numb to the touch and a cool breeze on my bare shoulders. It's a terrifying sight, but I wait until it passes and silently fear something worse.

By morning, I have been ambushed six times by imaginary people. Foxface visits me- we have a little chat by the fire, and she gives me some gold advice.

"Shoot high." She says with a wink, and walks off into the forest.

I stay where I am, afraid I might walk off some high place in this delicate state. It would be entertaining if it wasn't so believably terrifying.

Haymitch wanders in around midday- apparently my imagination has a strange sense of humor, because he's in a tuxedo and pours me champagne out of a metal can.

"What are you doing out here?" He asks, nonchalantly.

"Not sure yet." I reply, mimicking his tone.

He pours me some more champagne and I pretend to drink it, but the can falls through my fingers like sand. I bore him quickly, so he leaves.

I am in the clear for several minutes, and decide to move.

There is a high point, overlooking the forest- my idea is to send a sort of smoke signal, that would convince anyone for miles to investigate. Perhaps I could reel in Peeta with such a contraption. If I could find him, maybe he could return my bow to me- I imagine he's as hungry as I am.

Prim keeps me company as I lay on my stomach in the grass. It's a pretty day- I look up at the branches of the trees that seem to protrude like veins on my hand.

"Why are you so quiet all the time?" She says.

I turn to look at her. I am almost thankful for this hallucination- she looks so mercifully pure, her eyes as innocent and kind as the day she died- a kindred look on her face. It's decent closure.

"I don't know, Prim." I offer.

"I think you're scared. Of giving more of yourself away. After the Games-" She tries to finish, obviously searching for words.

I nod to encourage her. "What?"

"After the Games, you just seemed so- cautious. I understand why. But you were so slow to love."

It wasn't hard to believe. When everyone you know dies in the arena, you learn to accept that fate. "Yes, I know."

"Do something for me, will you? From now on, love without restraint."

"Okay."

"Say you will, Katniss."

I pause for a moment. "I will."

"Promise it."

"I promise."

We speak with our eyes, a silent language only sisters know. Then she jumps to her feet, smiles at me, and disappears into the trees, as if her entire mission was to convince me to love.

Without restraint.

Honestly, I don't think I've ever loved without restraint. What sort of love would that be? An all consuming type, bleeding out of you. It sounds horrible.

The Villagers appear to me, just at nightfall. I can feel my hallucinations growing weak because they're appearing more and more fuzzy against the scope of reality. It is more annoying than anything, because I can't get a good grip to start preparing materials for the smoke signal without the two dozen people grimacing at me through my peripheral vision.

The Elders shout strange things at me, but I just keep fiddling with the new nets. Lizabeth has joined the crowd too- but she looks way to chubby. I don't remember the real Lizabeth like that at all. If anything she was thin, with a slight Capitol demure that labeled her blithely different than the rest.

I admire her.

I think about her, at the Village, discovering my absence. Will she call for some sort of retrieval party? Reveal that she was hiding a full grown woman in her spare room? Gain the courage to confront the Elders once and for all? I feel the tiniest stab of guilt for leaving her in a moment of great decision. But it's not my decision to make. And I know they will never do it.

Still, the fear rings like sirens in my ears.

The people crowd in on me, so I continue off deeper into the woods, not the least bit frightened by the commotion. If a real person were to see me, they would hear nothing. This is completely internal, and that is a soothing fact to me.

Better internal than external.

My patience wears thin as the night goes along. How long can I put up with this? I wrap myself in my arms, cradling up against a puny fire, trying to stay warm as the faces of the imaginary villagers glow orange in the light.

I remember that lack of sleep only intensifies the hallucinations, but I cannot sleep tonight. Not like this. I wish Peeta could find me. At this moment, I need him more than ever.

My eyes spill over for no reason at all. I'm just tired. I'm just frustrated.

Mania hits as the moon crawls up to take center stage in the sky. There is blood on my hands. I start running, tripping from what little sleep I was able to acquire the past few nights. The people don't follow, and I shed my clothes on the way- throwing the raggedy skirts to the floor, removing the scarred shirt, shedding the useless slippers- before running into the small stream, dipping my hands in the water, wailing like a lunatic.

It's exactly what I am.

I quiet myself long enough to fixate on the moon.

_This will never get better,_ I think to myself. _I can't escape any of it. I will never leave the arena. I will never stop fighting. _

It's all inside. And as long as I'm living, I can't make it go away. I can't stop bringing pain to others- forcing dread on their hearts. This realization hits me like a blow upside the head, cooling every surface of my now bare skin.

I will never escape. Ever.

I am knee deep in the water, naked, when I hear a voice. It is soft enough that I can't detect any sort of unconscious fabrication- I know it is real, but still I question it.

Splashes accompany the voice again and Peeta grabs my shoulders and pulls me to him, saying something into my hair that is incomprehensible. I can't hear him- I question if I even understand words anymore. They are useless nothings- devices for only instilling fear. There is no other purpose.

"What are you doing out here?" He asks, drawing back. I cross my arms over my bare chest and turn away.

"Just go."

"No."

"It's useless!" I cry out, frightened at my own tone. So this is how I say hello? I tremble in my skin, but something inside hates him. His hope. His need for space. To start over. Unending optimism. "Just accept the truth."

"Which is-?" Peeta sheds his jacket, holding it out before crossing over the stream to collect something on the bank. I shake my head, hearing the blood pulsing in my ears.

"I don't want to see you. You don't need to try to help me."

"I don't understand."

I fling up my arms in a fury, back to him. "I can't ever be the same. Not after the games. Not after everything that's happened."

"We can make it the same."

"We can't!"

"Katniss, yes we can! We've done it before." He retracts softly, taking a step towards me. I'm shaking my head. I can't let him near me. He won't convince me.

I have to hurt him.

"I don't want you!" I say aloud, but he's not convinced. Nor am I. "I just used you- this- this-"

I'm breaking. My knees fall onto the sharp rocks under the water, but I fight against the pain. He has to know.

"I'll never be able to be what I want to be for you!" I scream, so loud I'm certain any person within four square miles can hear it.

"You always are."

"I don't know what's real anymore!"

Silence. I can hear the bugs in the grass, the water rushing past both of us, traveling down to the valleys below.

"I used to not know what was real." Peeta says slowly.

I shake my head. "No, no."

_Love without restraint. _

I try feebly, to fight, but he locks me in his arms.

"Someone had to teach me what was real." He continues. "Real or not real?"

"Real." I breathe.

I breathe again. And again. Joyful gulps of air. Light descending into darkness. I grow quiet. I give up.

Peeta removes his jacket and places it on me, before scooping me up and stepping out of the river. It is only now that I realize how much weight I've lost- my hands are like twigs, I can feel the hollows in my face, the ease of his pace as he takes me home. Wherever home is, I no longer care. All I can do is cling to him, ignoring the blush on my cheeks. Because nothing can erase my stark prudishness.

Something flickers inside.

I leave everything behind me, every hopeless doubt. Because I am going home. I am free. For now, I am free. Prim's imaginary words ring in my head.

_Love without restraint._


	11. eleven

**11.**

The hallucinations stop just as the leaves change to a golden brown and shuffle off the trees. It's cool at night now, and Peeta strings us up in hammocks, awaiting each coming night.

I'm silent. Unmoving. _Unfeeling. _During the day, I sit at the banks of the little tributary we live by, watching him. He doesn't speak anymore. At night, he leans over me and kisses me goodnight, in that smae spot on my forehead before settling beside me. Then I stare into the darkness until dreams obscure my view. They're more recolelctions than anything else- dialogue between me and the villagers, revisiting Cecilia's bunker, watching the Elders verbally hash it out over the grainy screens. The cabinet of medicines. The twins, playing on the porch with their matching white hair. The sway of the skirts across the briny ground. Lizabeth's secrets. Each one comes back to me, much like the ashes of the dead woman spreading over the ledge on that first morning, accompianed by the strange singing. When it all began.

My heart is shrunken with worry. I don't disclose anything with Peeta, as I should. It's slowly killing me- the notion of the Elder's plans. Access to the bomb, that was to be detonated at the possibility of Snow's regime being overthrown. Using it, as an offensive weapon. Sending it flying, a missle of destruction, bent on the New Capito, ending it before it even begins.

The worst thing is, I didn't try to stop it. I ran. Like I always have. Doing what I could to survive. I hadn't given weight to the consequences of what could be once I fled that night. All I wanted was escape. Now I feel like it's a myth.

There is no escape.

The precise reason we left District 12 was to escape. To find a place apart from the chaos. To heal. To find hope, maybe something else, I'm not sure. It all seems a million miles away now. The boy with the bread is silent beside me, shaken with the manipulation of reality. And I face the worst fate of all.

He turns, stirs, coughs. then grows silent again. He's beautiful in the moonlight. The most peircing of emotions shake the numbness I feel inside. I bury my face in his neck, trying to shut out the thoughts that bombard me at a thousand miles an hour. I want to be intoxicated with him, floating somewhere off the shore like. But something pulls me back, and I am dragged back to the place of fear and loathing.

The days shorten substantially in our neck of the woods and I hear no one. For all we know, we are the only ones left. I imagine what that would be like. No more familiar faces- those of my mother, Gale, the people back home, even Haymich- nor of the new regime, the people of District 13 and all thier plans. The forlorn faces of the children out on the streets, finally given a chance. Even those who are gone. Prim. Cinna. Rue. I think about whether I would give up thier memory in order to start over.

I decide I wouldn't want to.

Peeta coughs. I look over to him. He fixates me with a warm smile, but there is a weakness in his eyes. He has nets in his hands, constructing something. I greet him with a blank expression. How long have I been out? A day? A week? Everything flows together. The Revolution seems a decade away- the Games- another era. Ancient history.

I turn to Peeta. "How old am I?"

My voice both startles and soothes him at the same time.

"Twenty." He says finally, a shot in the dark by all means. "We're twenty, Katniss."

Twenty.

"Yes, you told me in the Games that you were born in Spring. I was born just before, the coldest day of winter." He says this to me very simple, as if I'm a child. "Now, it's fall."

"How much more time do we have?" I ask in reply. No response.

Maybe I imagined it.

But Peeta is ignoring me, eyes low, winding the rifts in the net, trying to keep a round of coughs muffled in his sleeve.

We sleep on the ground. When I aawake, earlier than usual, I gather the bows and walk out into the dewy morning, intent on the hunt. I'm pleasantly suprised by my progress. My fingers still tremble as I pull the string taut, but I slick the line clean and hold three rabbits as I appraoch our site again. It gives me time to think as I watch the red ball of light crawl up the sky.

* * *

><p>I've decided to put my trust in Cecilia. This is a strange notion, considering she's been dead nearly six years now; and yet, i almost feel as if I know her personally- as if she could walk out of the woods right now, sit down on an unsuspecting log, and engage in friendly chit-chat.<p>

I think, by her meticulous notes, that she truly cared for the Clearwater people. That she could save them, or at least prevent further exploitation. She must have had knowledge of the Games- must have watched them with the same horror I experienced.

People. Sentenced to die.

I can feel the notes in her secret manuscripts, jumping out at me.

_Melinda is making progress. The fetus is abnormally strong, but I fashion that a few more administrations of the anti-perphenson should help deliver her through labor. _

_Carla doesn't speak anymore. She just sits by the window and looks outside, patting her belly. Her eyes are absent. Any day now. No one can know._

_It's unfortunate that Karl is Monson's son. It is also unfortunate that I've taken a liking to him, which, upon our seperation, may render me very unprofessional. _

_Lizabeth is asking questions. They were right about her. Even at 14, she knows too much about Capitol policies and procedures. When I finally confronted her about it, she explained how she dodged the cleansing process. A remarkable girl. If I report her, she faces the death charge. If I fail to report her, I face the death charge. No one is safe, not even here. _

And finally, the most cryptic of all.

_Tonight, I was able to succeed in the greatest endeavor of my life- sealing these people away from everything. Nothing can get in. Nothing can get out. It is a personal paradise. They are finally free._

More memories flash, and I think I've solved the mystery.

_Cecilia disarmed the bomb. Before her untimely death. made it impossible for the Capitol to destroy the village. _

My chest is lifted from all the weight with this notion. If it is true, then there is nothing the Elders can do to disrupt the emerging new Capitol. I know for certain that they cannot reach anyone else in the proximity.

That's it.

The chaos in my mind is channeled into one fear, which upon being iradicated, makes me calm. I breathe, suddenly noticing the warmth of the sunshine flooding in through the treetops. And for the first time in a very long time, I feel like myself. As much as I can, at least.

I return to our campsite, with the light tracing my shoulders still, to find Peeta, eyes closed, hands fisted laying cold beside the river.


End file.
